


Oh, You Fool, There Are Rules

by ipreferfiction



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: AKA too many emotions about Revan and Alek and how it all went wrong, Alek/Revan is barely present, F/M, Gen, I have literally no clue how KOTOR II went, Pre-Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Revan’s Backstory, The Author Regrets Having Emotions, The Unknown Regions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23178814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipreferfiction/pseuds/ipreferfiction
Summary: Revan, from a child to a warrior to a Sith and back again—her early years on Dantooine, the Mandalorian Wars and the bloody aftermath, then the woman who emerged from nowhere and found herself with a dead Sith’s name and enemy (former ally, former friend). At last, the Jedi who struck down the only person who ever truly knew her.Revan, from beginning to end.
Relationships: Alek | Darth Malak & Revan, Alek | Darth Malak/Female Revan, Female Revan & Female Jedi Exile
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Oh, You Fool, There Are Rules

**Author's Note:**

> "Oh, you fool, there are rules, I am coming for you  
> Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins."  
> —Lord Huron, "The Yawning Grave"

Revan has always been headstrong. She’s never paid much heed to rules that made no sense to her, and her first course of action is to draw her lightsaber—it comes as no surprise that the first crystal she meditates on turns a blinding, brilliant blue as she sets it into her saber hilt. She has always been a warrior, more than most. Even as a child with her first lightsaber, her true nature shines through.

Alek is different. Tall and broad-shouldered, he stands out like Revan never did, but he has never been half the fighter she was, nor the leader. He follows her, and he always will, and that is the way of things. The sight of two robed figures scuttling around Dantooine is not unusual; the smaller is dressed in blue or grey, with long, black hair and inscrutable eyes, while the larger wears the usual colors, hair close-cropped and dark. They are always together, and have been since they were younglings escaping the harried masters sent to watch them.

So Revan and Alek grow up and grow older on Dantooine, though rarely under anyone’s watchful eye; they spend most evenings on the bluffs, lying in the grass and staring at the stars and planning for the future. They are nearly grown, but they are children nonetheless.

In later years, one or both will look back at these days with a bittersweet longing so strong it aches. In later years, one or both will say that this is where it all went wrong. In later years, these echoes will fade to nothingness, and only the Force will recall the companions laughing together in the tall golden grass.

But for now, they are friends, and they are innocent.

Revan grows up fast. All of a sudden, she is a grenade in the body of a woman dressed in blue robes, her dark hair a heavy braid down her back. Her eyes look more grey than anything else these days, especially as she bleeds her fury into the Force and on the end of her lightsaber.

She picks up a second blade one day, a discarded training saber left in the corner of the sparring room. Her masters see her and whisper among themselves as she trains herself to fight with two blades instead of one; she barely notices, except that Alek tells her about it in a worried voice that night.

She forges her second true lightsaber the next day. The blue seems a little closer to purple than her first crystal, but if remarks are made, she doesn’t hear them—and not just because Alek doesn’t let her.

The masters don’t trust her; she is too angry, too willful, too certain that her way is the only way. The Jedi her own age don’t like her because she surpassed them years ago. Despite this all, she is charismatic and bright and brilliant, and half the Jedi she’s trained with would follow her through anything.

Alek doesn’t like it, but Alek has never cared much for any of them.

Mandalorians start invading the Outer Rim; clan after clan, planet after planet. The Republic can’t do anything, the Jedi won’t do anything—and they have their reasons, but millions are dying while the Jedi sit on their heels. Revan says no and swears to stop them, so filled with anger as she stares the Jedi council down that they glance at each other half in fear, half in worry. She ignores the council’s decree, disregards their commands, gathers an army, and turns her back on the people who refuse to fight with her. She leaves Dantooine without so much as a backward glance and tells herself it doesn’t hurt.

Alek, as always, is at her side. She names him her right hand the minute another ship joins her. He never protests; she loves him dearly, more than the rules of attachment should allow, but he has always been second to her.

The first night she spends aboard her flagship, she meditates with her sabers floating beside her. When she ignites them once more, the cores glow brilliant gold beneath the blue. Alek finds her there and sees the sabers; not even she can explain all the mysteries of the Force to him.

They both look so different now. Her hair is longer even, eyes steely blue tinged with grey; she is never without her robes, either, and rarely without her new mask. His head is shaved and tattooed with blue, and he’s gotten taller and more muscular, dressing in darker and darker robes. They’ve both put a bit of the Jedi Code behind them.

Revan kisses Alek for the first time that night. When she looks back after everything goes sideways, this will be the second point of no return.

She wins. She sacrifices cities and worlds, so she can get the upper hand. At the end of it, she scatters the clans and crushes them utterly, killing Mandalore with her own lightsabers.

She is a hero. She is the best of them. She has saved the Republic, though it cost her everything.

She is hollow as she turns her back to Malachor V.

So she and Alek go into the Unknown Regions, because she knows something started this. Something is responsible for the war, and it isn’t the Mandalorians. Not this time, not this powerful. She goes into the unknown regions, and when she comes back, she is Sith, and Alek is Malak, and all of a sudden the heroes of the Mandalorian Wars are the conquerors of the Republic. Revan is the head of the serpent, of their empire, and Malak is her apprentice.

And somewhere along the line, their bond turns to something bitter. Somewhere along the road, Malak begins to hate his second place, begins to hate Revan—Revan, who cuts off his jaw in a moment of fury; Revan, who may still love him—and he turns darker than he ever was before.

The Jedi come for Revan, and they find her, and Malak on another ship orders his commanders to fire upon Revan’s vessel. The ship goes up in flames, and Revan with it. Or so they think.

Or so they pray, and Malak never once allows himself to regret it.

Mica Kasra wakes up on a burning spaceship and almost immediately crashes on Taris with a Republic soldier. She rescues a Jedi, escapes a Sith bombing, and somehow leaves with a new ship and six companions; that will be what she questions most, the quality that makes them follow her. They land on Dantooine (and she knows the bluffs, knows the way the grass waves and the sun sets across open fields, but she also dreams of Revan, so how is that any stranger?) She has visions of Star Maps and follows Revan’s footsteps across three planets; when she meets Darth Malak aboard his ship, she is ready and willing to end him.

But Malak looks her in the eyes and sees Revan, because she _is_ Revan, because the Jedi never killed her—just stole her memories and her identity and scrubbed her clean and shiny, the greatest warrior of their era in the body of a soldier who can’t remember the life she once lived.

Mica meets Malak again on the Star Forge, the source of their fleet and their might. A muted lifetime ago, she found the cold trail of the Infinite Empire and demanded it lead her to this place, and she used its power to invade the Republic and to save it. She cannot remember a single step of it (such are the lies she tells herself, because the greatest victim of her lies has always been her own mind).

An eon ago, when he broke her newest life apart, Malak stole her friend and turned her to the Dark Side. She wins Bastila back, and then she tracks the Sith Lord down.

She meets him in the heart of the Star Forge. Her hair is cut short, and her eyes are more blue than grey. One lightsaber is golden, the other green. She doesn't wear a mask, and she wears a dead Sith's armor. He knows her still, and as he raises his lightsaber, she realizes that she has never quite forgotten what it was like to fight him. When she strikes him down, there is no joy. He asks her, almost laughing, almost crying, if he could have been redeemed in her place, tells her that she led him down this path. He dies with her name on his lips, her first name (her true name). He dies with her saber buried in his chest.

His name was Alek, and when she was someone else, he was her best friend. His name is Malak, and he killed her.

There are tears running down her face. When she picks up her fallen lightsaber, her hands are shaking.

Revan walks from the Star Forge robed in white and brown and pretends very hard when the Republic pins a medal to her chest that she isn’t alone for the final time. She misses Meetra’s quick wit. She misses Dantooine as it was in the blinding light of nostalgia. She misses her lightsabers with their cores of gold.

More than anything, she misses Alek’s smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Star Wars fic I’ve posted, and the first oneshot I’ve done in about three years. I played through KOTOR, then decided to run through it again, then got overwhelmed thinking about Revan and the tragedy that is her life. Completely unreviewed by anyone else, so please feel free to offer constructive criticism. Enjoy!  
> 


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